After some delays, Highbridge residents now have access to an interim track and field facility until the new Yankee Stadium and replacement parks are completed. Progress has been slower on the promised tennis courts and esplanade slated for the area just west of the Bronx Terminal Market development along the Harlem River.

The interim track, located on the site of a parking lot at 161st Street and Jerome Avenue opened May 23, after the Joseph Yancey Track and Field in Macomb’s Dam Park was torn down over a year ago. The new track has been greeted with enthusiasm by local families, although some question its safety.

“It was a parking lot—it was used for nothing, and now we’ve got a better place to play,” said Lenny Cabrera, who was watching a softball league play on the new field. Cabrera used to run on the Mullaly Park track and played football there. “That’s the only thing missing, a football field,” he said.

“It’s better than running on the street,” said Luis Perez, who was at the track with his 11-year-old son, Luis Jr. Perez said he runs every day and was happy to have a track again.

Not everyone was satisfied with the design of the $1.6 million track. Council member Helen Diane Foster’s office has heard complaints about the lack of barriers between the softball field and the track, and her staff members were concerned that adult baseball teams were playing on a field intended only for softball. Stray baseballs could injure people walking or running on the track, they said.

Joyce Hogi, a 30-year community resident who is active in efforts to improve the parks, noted that the community was never informed that the track had officially opened. Most of the people who were using the track said they just happened to pass by and see it open. The track will eventually be replaced with a rooftop facility on top of one of the parking garages for the stadium, according to plans released by the city.

 Hogi said she was encouraged by progress on the project to replace the 400 mature trees destroyed to build the new stadium. According to parks department spokesperson Jesslyn Tiao,  the project will be completed in phases until all 8,000 trees are planted.  The first phase, which involved planting 219 trees, was completed in December, and the second phase, which will consist of planting 600 new trees, is ongoing. Thus far, a little more than half of the second phase has been completed. , Tiao said. Hogi said the plan was moving along well, but that she hoped to raise money for fencing to protect the trees.

Tennis League Displaced

One issue still outstanding is the loss of 14 tennis courts in Mullaly Park last August. Every summer, hundreds of Bronx children participate in the New York Junior Tennis League, and about 100 of them had grown accustomed to playing at Mullaly Park each day. With the arrival of another summer, representatives of the league say they’re still searching for a replacement for the Mullaly Park courts.

The tennis courts will eventually be relocated to a new park on the waterfront between 151st and 163rd Streets, but that park won’t be completed until at least 2009.
“We’ve had a program in Mullaly Park since 1970 — it’s one of our original programs,” said Allan Shweky, Director of Recreational Tennis at the New York Junior Tennis League. “We’ve run free programs for kids through the Parks Department,” he added.
“We don’t have that many parks in our program, but that was a key site, and we had a lot of community response.”

Shweky was hoping to find a location near Mullaly Park so the league can continue to serve the community and said there were possibilities for tennis courts at some local schoolyards, but nothing certain.”

Waterfront Concerns

Given the pace of construction along the waterfront, residents could be forgiven if they are anxious about the completion date for the replacement tennis courts. The Highbridge Horizon reported in November that work on the new parks was delayed because of  the discovery of underground fuel tanks.  A spokesperson  for the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) said  the agency is currently removing the  tanks from the site and expects to finish the “spill remediation work” in conjunction with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) by the end of June. 

The next phases of the development, however, depend on the city and state approving designs and granting permits, which could take from four months to a year.
Contractors are working on stabilizing the bulkhead—the retaining wall that keeps the Harlem River from encroaching too far onto land—before they can proceed with additional work.

 A spokesperson for the EDC, the agency responsible for the work, said the agency expects the bulkhead work to be completed by summer 2008. The work may have to be coordinated with the Army Corps of Engineers if the repairs involve digging into the river to stabilize the edge of the waterfront and fix collapsed concrete.

The waterfront park plan, estimated to cost nearly $51.6 million  calls for “spill remediation and demolition” first, then bulkhead repairs, followed by construction of the tennis courts and renovation of the former power plant building, and then construction of the parks and esplanade. The former power plant, which once served as a refrigerator plant for the Bronx Terminal Market warehouses, will be converted into a community space with a café and office space for park employees, according to the representative for the EDC.
There are some changes to the original plans for the replacement parks, with an additional 2.5 acres of recreational parkland and esplanade. Ballfields will be constructed at the Highbridge Recreation Center and PS 29, not at the Bronx Terminal Market site as originally proposed, Tiao said.

Despite the EDC’s statements that they are following strict procedures for cleaning up the contamination, some environmental health advocates are concerned about putting a park on top of toxic soil.

“You really have to have cleanup standards that are protective of children,” said Marian Feinberg, environmental health coordinator at For a Better Bronx. Children are closer to the ground and more easily exposed to hazardous chemicals, she said. Feinberg was also concerned about plans to build tracks and fields on top of parking structures near the new stadium. “I think it’s a disaster because I think there’s going to be a lot of vehicular exhaust, either through the roof or just in the area,” she said.

Residents have also raised concerns about the location of the new parks along the Harlem River, a deserted area that is considerably more remote from Highbridge than the parks being torn down. EDC representatives said there are no plans for a shuttle or other transportation to help people get to the waterfront park, but that the esplanade is to be extended to a new pedestrian bridge being built in conjunction with the new Metro North Station, under construction north of the Gateway Center. The pedestrian bridge will have elevators providing full access, and will remain open year-round, EDC staff said.  They added that the Gateway Center, the new retail development on the Terminal Market site, will provide connections from River Avenue through its buildings and property directly to the waterfront.

Despite recent statements by city officials that the tennis courts will not be completed until 2011, EDC officials said the entire waterfront park is scheduled for completion by April 2009.

Jim Fairbanks, Councilmember Foster’s Chief of Staff,  hopes the parks’ construction is taken as seriously as the new stadium. “You can build one of the greatest sports facilities in the world by 2009, but we’ll have to wait forever for replacement parks,” he said.